McKean supervisors may renew litigation against auditors

Supervisors meet Monday to discuss wages slashed by auditors and if new legal action is needed.

Valerie Myers @ETNMyers

MCKEAN — McKean Township supervisors will meet in special session Monday to consider another round of legal action against township auditors.

Supervisors last year challenged auditors' decision to cut their wages in 2017. An Erie County judge overturned the decision in September and significantly increased how much supervisors are paid.

Auditors last week again slashed supervisors' wages, this time for 2018.

"They went back to the wages they set in 2017 that the judge overturned," Janice Dennis, chairwoman of the board of supervisors, said Friday. "They're possibly forcing supervisors to go back to court on the same issue they lost in 2017."

Auditors appealed the Erie County Court ruling to Commonwealth Court. There's been no ruling on the appeal.

"I understand that the wage the judge set was for 2017, but the court order was based on an expert's judgment on wages," Dennis said.

Auditors last year set Dennis' pay at $14 per hour for her work as township secretary. They set pay for Supervisors Brian Cooper and Ron Bole, who work as roadmasters, at $20.19 and $18 respectively.

Erie County Judge Stephanie Domitrovich determined that those wages were below average wages for similar positions in other townships and that auditors failed to present the methodology that they used to set compensation.

Her ruling raised salaries to $21.75 per hour for Dennis and $26.17 per hour for Cooper and Bole, based on the recommendation of an independent expert.

Auditors this year added 1.5 percent raises to the lower wages that they set last year, Dennis said.

"So, yes, they gave us a bit of an increase, but they slashed what the judge ordered," she said.

Domitrovich, in her fall ruling, called the auditors' wage decision "arbitrary and capricious."

Auditors based wages on compensation earned for similar work in similar townships in Erie County, Auditor Barbara Craig said.

"We did an extensive survey of all of the townships in Erie County. There are 22 of them," she said, "and 16 similar to McKean Township. That's how we came up with the wages we set this year. We used the median wages from the survey. The wages are right in line with the other 16."

Auditors challenged the methodology and figures used by the court's expert in their appeal of Domitrovich's ruling.

"They only looked at seven townships, and a majority of those with higher populations, like North East," Craig said.

Dennis countered that the auditors' survey included much smaller townships with fewer miles of roads to maintain.

McKean Township auditors last year faced criminal wiretap charges for allegedly taping conversations in the township building without permission or notice. They were acquitted on reduced charges, of disorderly conduct, in October by Springfield Township District Judge Chris MacKendrick.

Supervisors in December read a list of what they describe as auditors' "infractions" of public meeting and other state laws into public record and called on Craig and Auditor Joseph Szymanowski to resign by Dec. 31.

The auditors didn't resign and set the supervisors' 2018 wages Tuesday.

"We did not resign, and I don't have any intention of doing that because we're doing our jobs," Craig said. "Auditors are checks and balances for the township, and for the taxpayers. That's our job."

Dennis agrees that state law gives auditors a "watchdog" role over supervisors, but said there's no one to watch over the auditors.

"It's an issue that we will present in a resolution to the (Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors) this spring, that the code book needs to be amended and legislation is needed, because auditors are not accountable for how they do their duties," Dennis said.

Valerie Myers can be reached at 878-1913 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmyers.

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